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"Monitoring conversations, including those that take place with social media, is part of our daily routine; our products can be used as early warning systems, helping clients with rapid response and crisis management.

I don't know who posted this, but I will point out that who ever it was has no official relationship with Slashdot. No company or external entity has been granted any special authority to moderate discussions on Slashdot.

I changed the boiler plate text in the email to say the following, which I believe has more of a punch:

_____________________
I am a constituent and I urge you to reject the Internet Blacklist Bills (PROTECT IP Act in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act in the House).

In addition to the danger these bills pose to Internet security, free speech online, and innovation, I am deeply concerned by the risk that these unprecedented assaults on foreign entities will be interpreted as a provocation of war, particularly by leaders who are already hostile towards US policies, such as Putin of Russia. This will be heavily compounded as this inevitably leads to harming sites that many will view as innocent victims of this highly subjective process and clearly biased intent towards increasing corporate profits in Hollywood.

This bill will also re-enforce the image that congress is purchased and own by corporate interests.

Lastly, due to the sweeping level of censorship, this bill will popularize methods of overcoming censorship to the US, technology that is usually reserved for hardship regimes. This will certainly make it difficult for the intelligence community to find real crimes, as their chatter becomes increasingly co-mingled with mainstream on-line anti-censorship technology.

The Internet Blacklist Legislation is dangerous and short-sighted, and I urge you to join Senator Wyden and other members of Congress, such as Representatives Lofgren, Eshoo and Issa, in opposing it.
_________________

You do understand they only want that money so they can get more people to vote for them?

You writing a letter to your representative isn't going to change much. You and a few thousand other people doing it is going to make them realize that you represent a sufficiently large chunk of their constituency that they'll be losing more votes continuing to support the bill than they can buy back with the Hollywood money.

Well, part of the modern argument is that only US citizens have rights and that the constitution does not apply to people outside the country.. which kinda goes against the whole 'inalienable rights' concept.

That's trivial to work around. All that need be done is point out that even if a site is hosted outside the US and created by non-US citizens there, then when someone in the US accesses it they are still subject to US law. Thus the SOPA censorship program is only to prevent people from sneakily using the national border to commit crimes on the inside of it.

"We will only censor foreign websites, we promise!" does not make the proposal any better. Their are no nationality of a website on the Internet, a website is a part of the Internet, no matter where it is hosted.

Thus explaining why I go to so many Chinese-language websites. The truth is that there most certainly are national borders on the web and on the Internet, but the borders are not as arbitrary as the borders on a world map. Borders on the Internet are formed by the identity of groups of people, who are brought together by common cultures, common languages, common needs, etc.

Otherwise I agree, SOPA is so anti-American that any congressman who votes for it should face impeachment proceedings.

When it comes to law though, the borders are more physical. Even up in the Cloud, information has to be stored in an actual hard drive somewhere. Users have a country of residence. The big distinction is the ease of jurisdiction-shopping. If you don't like the laws of your real country, it's a huge hastle and expense to leave and go elsewhere - while on the internet, it isn't hard at all to do the equivilent.

There are some completly lawless places, like Freenet - but this isn't for an legal reason, but sim

"A country is part of the world, no matter where it is situated". By your logic, different nations shouldn't exist. It's a nice idea of course, but reality kind of gets in the way.

If anything the fact that sites are not located in the US should be what makes it impossible for them to do anything - apart from create something akin to China's "Great Firewall". If they want to stop people using US owned domains then fine, but they'd better not try to start taking down.ru sites etc.

Note that I don't even agree with Copyright infringment, but neither do I agree with these clowns.

If anything the fact that sites are not located in the US should be what makes it impossible for them to do anything - apart from create something akin to China's "Great Firewall". If they want to stop people using US owned domains then fine, but they'd better not try to start taking down.ru sites etc.

It was my impression that was largely what this was trying to do. If PiratePlace.ru or whatever was found to be an unlawful site, they would block it in the US, meaning you couldn't access it from the US. They would also block US banks and stuff from processing payments to it. I would think you'd still be able to access the site in China, or Europe.

Even during an election year, when the bill before Congress gives rights to wealthy corporations and takes them away from citizens, that's a sure way to win overwhelming bipartisan support. It's one of the effects of government by bribery that we currently have.

Correction.. Especially during an election year. The largest crowd of voters is the group most easily manipulated by a combination of advertisements and the media. Taking money from said media to get biased news coverage, and applying that money towards your own commercials is getting free votes, The voting population won't know what rights they are giving away, because the media doesn't have to cover it. To top it off, when this bill gets signed, it may also put a huge dent in independent online news. "I suspect that Slashdot is plagiarizing our CNN tech site as they both reported on the same topic". Once that goes on they can start systematically shutting down competing news sources, which in turn lets them mask who is doing it in their normal reporting etc...

The internet isn't unified. Remember that most people consider the internet a place to keep track of friends on Facebook and look at pictures of cats. They care as little as possible about the politics behind it.

How long before the majority of the Slashdot crowd gets on board with limited Constitutional government and stops supporting liberals just because they're occasionally expanding an "acceptable" part of government? Give a politician an inch and they'll bend you over and give you 10. The only way to remain free is to slap down anything they don't have the authority to do. If we really need it, then we need an amendment saying so. Otherwise, make them stick to the enumerated powers and made them side with freedom over lobbyist bribes.

Also, when your favorite politician is advocating some new expansion of government power, ask yourself if you'll be so happy when this new power is wielded by the other side. Listen to our Founding Fathers: the only way to be free is not tempt men with power. Historically, government is an oppressor and everything it does should be treated with suspicion or you deserve what you get.

I agree whole heartedly with you, but I have to comment on one point- "Otherwise, make them stick to the enumerated powers and made them side with freedom over lobbyist bribes" - freedom doesnt pay anywhere near as well as lobbyist bribes. Our politicians dont care one bit about freedom, liberty, the constitution, or the people. They care about money. If freedom paid well, we'd be the free-est damn place on Earth.

How long before the majority of the Slashdot crowd... stops supporting liberals

You fail. Lamar Smith, the sponsor of this bill is a conservative. The truth is that both liberal and conservative congressional members routinely support draconian copyright laws that give huge amounts of power to large corporations. Snap out of the "small government" brainwashing and realize that the real fight is between those who want to give unlimited power to corporations, who make up almost the entirety of the Republican party plus a good amount of the Democratic party, and those who support protecting consumers from predatory behavior.

And this is the problem, those who favor the expansion of government power have distorted the issues so that the divide is between those who want to "conservatively" expand government power and those who want to "liberally" expand government power. Just as in the 50s, those who favored government control of the economy said that the political spectrum extended from the Communists (who wanted to seize all means of production and have bureaucrats run it) on the left to the Fascists (who wanted to let "capital

...and those who support protecting consumers from predatory behavior.

There's really no such thing anymore. Yes, USDA inspections of meat packing factories was once sorely needed. But there hasn't been a single bit of legislation in the last 50 years termed "consumer protection" that was anything but a rule eliminating some consumer choice.

How long before the majority of the Slashdot crowd gets on board with limited Constitutional government and stops supporting liberals just because they're occasionally expanding an "acceptable" part of government? Give a politician an inch and they'll bend you over and give you 10. The only way to remain free is to slap down anything they don't have the authority to do. If we really need it, then we need an amendment saying so. Otherwise, make them stick to the enumerated powers and made them side with freedom over lobbyist bribes.

Also, when your favorite politician is advocating some new expansion of government power, ask yourself if you'll be so happy when this new power is wielded by the other side. Listen to our Founding Fathers: the only way to be free is not tempt men with power. Historically, government is an oppressor and everything it does should be treated with suspicion or you deserve what you get.

You make it sound like only liberals expand government.

If Ron Paul and the other politicians pretending not to be 'just another republican' get their way then government will be made smaller, perhaps, but it will only be the 'liberal' (aka democrat) programs that get cut. Republican programs will be untouched or expanded.

So long as politicians are owned by big money, there will be no fundamental change in the way things work in the US.

Liberals might run the government poorly, but conservatives want to give the government to the rich. Personally, I'd rather a system I can at least in theory vote in, over the Social Darwinism championed by libertarians.

"Historically, government is an oppressor and everything it does should be treated with suspicion or you deserve what you get."

Read up on the East India Company. And before telling me it was government-connected, think about how much of a difference that made in how it operated or to t

The great irony here is that the United States is the only country in the world that DOES this.

All US Citizens, regardless of where they live, what other citizenships they hold or what they are doing... are required to pay income tax to the US on all income, worldwide.

If you are a US Citizen and you move away. If you live in France or China for the REST of your life, you owe Uncle Sam a tax return every year. If you ever set foot in the US again, after living abroad for years, you may be arrested for tax

I don't know what worries me most, that politicians in America really believe this is good for the country, or that politicians in America are so deep in the pockets of the corporations to push this through.

I've heard a lot of bad things about this bill. I don't think it's a good bill, and hope it doesn't pass (even though it most likely will). But I'm hearing so much FUD from the people against this bill that it makes me roll my eyes every time I hear about it . Sites like StackOverflow and the Stack Exchange Network [stackoverflow.com] state they their sites could be directly harmed by this bill. PLLEEEAAASE. Get Real. No judge is going to take down a Q and A forum because somebody reports that one of the 8 million questi

You just have to look at what has already happened without SOPA - abuse of DCMA for the purpose of censorship by private corporations, takedowns of legitimate websites taking a year for the owners to get them back, presumption of guilt with no recourse to defend oneself, subversion of DNS etc. Roll your eyes as much as you want, but there is real reasons behind what you refer to as FUD.

Dear Stack overflow, every time I try to play this disc it keeps popping up an error. I've narrowed it down to this one component that doesn't seem to do anything other then give me headaches. Help me bypass it.

It must be nice to be so naive and optimistic. The truth of the matter is that the DMCA is already being abused broadly to silence legitimate speech. Having broad laws and enforcing them selectively ensures that almost anyone is in violation of the law and can simply be grabbed out of the crowd as soon as they say something that you don't like. Whether or not a site in particular is going to be directly taken down, it will harm the whole Internet by providing a chilling effect on all forms of speech.

There's really no other way to take down access to foreign owned piracy exclusive sites. And there really does need to be a way to take sites like this down

Sorry, but your basic premise is wrong. There does NOT need to be a way to "take sites like this down", if in fact you could accomplish that in any meaningful way. It's the same basic flaw in any argument for censorship - the idea that if you remove people's access to something you think is undesirable, that it solves the problem. Really, the problem is your own: that you think that the thing you want to censor is undesirable/wrong.

That will take you to a blog post about SOPA and ACLU's opposition to it. The last link in the article is a link to a form where you fill in the blanks and it will send off a letter to your representatives. It is one of the easiest ways to contact your representatives about your concerns. Forget your feelings about the ACLU or other such crap. This bill/legislation/power-grab needs to be stopped, and it is your duty as an American to let your representatives know that you oppose it.

Move to one of many darknets and say goodbye to government regulation of, by, and for the big corporations. I'm not a big corporation, so the government should have no interaction with me... if only it worked that way...

Personally, in my infinite spare time, I'm working (slowly) on a openvpn and quagga based exclusively ipv6 darknet. Don't peer with me, peer with someone already there, preferably far away from your home. An independent project is resurrecting ye olde usenet with a twist... all "peering"

I can't find any info on that ad (if it exists). That said, should large media conglomerates [wikipedia.org] be allowed to list multiple subsidiaries as supporters of measures in political ads like that? (This is just one of many problems with that sort of ad, but one I quickly noticed.)

Copying can not be legislated on the internet. Period. Put the laws in place if you like, but it is meaningless. The RIAA and MPAA missed it, but the power has already passed from them to the audience. No longer can they dictate release windows (theatrical, DVD, VOD, etc.) or decided which version are public and which are not (bootlegs, old seasons of TV shows, special 'limited' editions).

Simply put there is no argument that wins, it is now a physical law of the internet. The only way forward that is actua

It looks like this bill just forces ISPs to change their DNS information to not have sites in it. As horrible as that is (and it IS ridiculous), what would stop people from using 206.47.244.61/206.47.244.103 (Those are from Toronto via a quick Google look up. They're perhaps not the best ones available, but it's the kind of thing that you can search for.) or something at which point the Internet is exactly the same? Am I missing something?

Actually, all that will happen is that the US has built exactly what they've been decrying about the Chinese Internet for so long - only the US will be blocked from accessing those sites and they'll carry on being hosted in foreign countries just as before. It's a "Great Firewall of US" instead, that's all. And the feature creep from piracy to other undesirable things is *exactly* what the Chinese do to block sites that disagree with their regime (up to and including Google for mentioning democracy, for example). And who manages those lists? And how hard would it be to put Wikileaks on it, or any site that discloses "secret" details of Guantanamo Bay etc.?

You still won't be able to shut down anything operating outside the US (hosting, domains, or internet access) and it will still carry on regardless, just that the US won't easily "see" it. It's an all-ways-lose for the US, really, trying to box its citizens off from the real world like China does.

The US "pirates" won't suffer (they'll just download from somewhere else, or find a way to join the same downloads bypassing the filters, or buy a VPN in China with Bitcoins), the non-US "pirates" won't suffer at all, the "pirate" sites will lose a few users but also a whole lot of hassle (if the US people can't see the sites like AllOfMP3 that worked by having Russian music-industry licenses anyway, then what's to sue over?) and also still can't be brought to stand in court in the US unless something very serious has been done and they are extradited, and the music/movie industries get the law they've always wanted (and still there'll be no change to overall piracy levels).

The burden of complying will push content providers out of the US (because now they HAVE to filter everything and Google already fled China once because of the cost of that) and that would include everything from international ad networks to search engines to payment methods (you think Paypal.com would be affected if Paypal's EU bank was doing business with SOPA "offenders"? They'd either partition the company, or just stop trading in one or the other, both options of which hurt the business and customer).

And eventually, someone will realise that they can't go onto site X because it's been added to the list and has nothing to do with piracy (e.g. like the Australian filter list did, where perfectly innocent businesses were filtered for no reason), and that the movie/music industry are STILL claiming the same levels of piracy (so the law did nothing) - like they are in New Zealand at the moment - and that they have similar human rights as regards accessing an Internet as the Chinese do. And then it'll make the news one day, get blown out of all proportion, get thoroughly revoked and never mentioned again and people will carry on their lives.

I'll say it again - the US is one of the least "free" places I've ever been to.

I'll say it again - the US is one of the least "free" places I've ever been to.

I don't know where you've been, but this seems like hyperbole to me. What countries have you been to that are so much more "free" than the USA, and what freedoms do you have in them that you don't have in the USA?

Too much hyperbole from the people against this bill. It sounds like the ramblings of a madman, or some conspiracy nut. What it's going to allow them to do is take down access to sites like The Pirate Bay that are "dedicated" (this word appears a lot in the wikipedia article) to copyright infringement. It's not going to be used to take down legitimate sites. You can twist the words in the law to make that possible, but no judge is going to take down legitimate sites because somebody posted a single copyrighted item on them which was promptly removed.

Once the government has access to something, they kind of try and stretch that authority to fill other perceived needs. Sounds like a slippery slope argument to me, but unfortunately, history seems to have vetted this one.

Let me ask you: why do they need this power? If they show a website to be dedicated to offering copyrighted material for download, then can't they already ask a judge to take it down/seize the domain (right now they're just taking them away without any oversight)? What more power do they need? Seriously.

What it's going to allow them to do is take down access to sites like The Pirate Bay that are "dedicated" (this word appears a lot in the wikipedia article) to copyright infringement.

Part of the problem is they are essentially outsourcing the decision making, giving private companies a big piece in the say regarding what a legitimate site is and what is not. It is also structured in such a way that site owners do not have a very good mechanism for challenging a shutdown, in fact they might not even have standing since people in other countries do not always have access to the US legal system. So there is very little reason to apply any real standards to what gets shut down and given how badly abused the DCMA's takedown notice has been it is not that much of a leap to picture this law being used the same way.

So even if the law is well intentioned and billed as being used only against dedicated sites, it can and will be abused due to its low barrier of review and high barrier for defense.

Who said anything about a judge? That's one of the major problems with this bill. It lets rights holders cut off funding to any site accused of copyright infringement without having to go through the courts. That's exactly what Hollywood wants to avoid. The legal system is actually starting to get wise to the sheer idiocy of their anti-piracy legal cases, so they're going around it.

The definition of "dedicated" is up to interpretation. Already under the "Operation In Our Sites" that ICE is performing, many legitimate websites have been caught in the crossfire while being claimed as "dedicated" to copyright infringement. Several were accused of copyright infringement and had their websites taken down, only to find out that the videos were given to them by the copyright owners as promotional material.

We don't give the government right to take down a website without due process, no matter what. Not only that, but even The Pirate Bay has some legitimate, non-infringing content on it.

The government and big-business do not get to decide what is and is not allowed to be accessed. If the law is being broken, then charge or sue the people who are breaking the law, that is it.

An internet where only corporations are allowed to disseminate information might be something that the people of the world are clamoring for, but judging by the constant "intellectual property" litigation affecting market access of even the most legitimate corporations, it's hard to believe that the law won't disrupt the big corporations internet presence as well.

The fact of the matter is, you cannot guarantee that. And the second you give the US the power to take down any sites, you've given them the power to take down all sites.

There is absolutely no justification, nor any reason whatsoever, that the US should be involved in blocking access to any site whatsoever. Allowing them to do so only increases the possibility of abuse by government for the purposes of censorship.

I'll say it again - the US is one of the least "free" places I've ever been to.

I don't know where you've been, but this seems like hyperbole to me. What countries have you been to that are so much more "free" than the USA, and what freedoms do you have in them that you don't have in the USA?

That's just nonsense. Freedom of speech is somewhat restricted in most European countries. You can't carry firearms (without a great deal of hassle, if at all) in most European countries. Some European countries restrict your freedom to wear religious items of clothing. etc etc

Banks won't let you hide your face and Health and Safety require cleanliness in the clothing for caterers. Both require that some religious clothes are not allowed.

How about the full Burqua in France?

Whereas the USA has Free Speech Zones.

Of course there are free speech zones. How else could you do it? You can't simply allow people to demonstrate and protest wherever they want... My right to free speech doesn't mean I can stand in the middle of the Holland tunnel and giving a speech (and thereby prevent everyone else from getting to their jobs in New York City).

You're only allowed to travel in the USA as long as you're not on the travel watchlist which you're not allowed to see or correct.

I'll agree that the do-not-fly list is a rather messed up thing, mainly because it seems to have an utter lack of oversight. But again, hyperbol

My right to free speech doesn't mean I can stand in the middle of the Holland tunnel and giving a speech (and thereby prevent everyone else from getting to their jobs in New York City).

Blocking traffic is not speech. But you sure as hell ought to be allowed to stand on the side of (not in) the road holding a sign so that passing motorists can read it. Or do the same outside of some corrupt politician's event in a way that your signs have some hope of making it into the media coverage, instead of being corralled into some fenced area where you can be conveniently ignored.

And what are you going to accomplish with your freedom of speech if you don't own a media empire? Censorship is never directed against disseminating information (this is what secrecy is for), it's used against editorials and placing information in "trustworthy" sources.

Ok, I'm feeling your angst, but your arguments make little sense. First, SOPA isn't law. It hasn't gotten through committee, let alone gotten to the full House, let alone been passed by both houses and signed into law. There's lots of objections to this law, many from some heavy hitters with lots of lobbyists. Its passage is far from assured. You've setup a large series of events in your prediction, but the first stone hasn't even been cast.

Your assertions that the US is least "free" pace you've ever been indicates a serious lack of travel (I've been to far worse places). Much also depends on how you define "free". For instance: I love Germany. I've been there twice, enjoyed the Hell out it, think the health care system is great, find their attitude on things like sex, food, drink, and body image refreshing. It's also very clearly a "free" country by most reasonable definitions of the word. On the other hand, they have some severe restrictions on certain areas of speech. You practically can't mentions Nazis (I'm exaggerating a bit, but not much). Weapons laws are much more restrictive than in the US (Not a big deal for me, but I have friends who would find this onerous). I also recall a recent article about the German Government installing spyware on people's computers as they cross the border.

Is Germany "more free" than the US? In some ways yes, in some ways no. The thing is, as Americans, we see the problems in our system much more prominently. To an extent, due to the influence of the US on world politics, even non-Americans see those problems more prominently. I'm not saying that the US is the best place to live on Earth; I haven't been everywhere for one thing, and I can't deny that I wouldn't mind living in Europe or Canada for a time at least. On the other hand the US is hardly an awful place to live. There are far far less free places out there, and far far worse situations to be in. Of course, we should fight things like this wherever we can to maintain (or even improve) that situation.

Does Germany require you to register with their government before you visit?

If you are not a citizen of their meta-country (the EU), they do. The only reason you think they don't is because you don't realize that they consider your country to be part of theirs. Germany is a state in the EU the same way that California is a state in the USA.

American citizens thinks that doing this is wrong, so US will apply it to other people, in other countries, or in outside territories... Torture, or put in prison without trial is ok if done in guantanamo, people that complain against government/stablishment should be protected unless is in US, and only our voters need to have human rights. Heck, how loud are the US complains when other countries filter or censors the internet communication, but this time is ok because the bosses of the ones that are in the